Constitution By a Thread

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People who share my Faith will understand without too much explanation why exactly this day is important. On his radio program yesterday, Constitutional Lawyer, head of Landmark Legal Foundation, Jew, and author Mark Levin said that the Constitution hangs by a thread. The day of prophecy has come.

What are the evidences of this?

-President Obama, at the urging of a US Senator, Charles Shumer, is considering violating the Constitution to raise the debt ceiling, a clear usurpation of legislative authority

-a single Supreme Court justice eventually stands between your right to buy what you please and government’s ability to force you to buy what they like

-during his Twitter Townhall, Obama spent a lot of time discussing cuts to Defense, which is a legitimate function of government, to pay for Education, which is not mentioned in the Constitution at all

-the DoD is involved, not necessarily in the protection of American interests as much as it is in use as an army of occupation in several theaters, clandestinely, and in violation of the War Powers Act, and despite his promises to the contrary, troops will remain in Iraq-Obama has devalued our currency through sequential Quantitative Easing programs which have printed money and enslaved us in debt to China, a clear violation of the "entangling alliances"

-the Obama Administration is intevening to stay the execution of a foreign national but will not protect CBP officers like those who shot but did not kill a mexican drug lord

-Obama bows to foreign heads of state, his wife hugs the queen of England, and he uses public funds in the form of Air Force One and the White House to raise funds for reelection-not once since Obama took office have the Democrats passed a budget

-Obama has essentially nationalized the automotive and banking industries

-before his election, Obama promised transparency by posting bills to the internet before he signed them when he has signed bills into law that nobody has read in their entirety before they were passed

-the president insists on going green as green industries file for bankruptcy and although the UN admits that it's prohibitively expensive, the costs far outweighing the benefits

-Obama insists on paying for the bureaucracy before paying for the debt, gives his staffers raises far in excess of that on average in any other employment sector, and talks about how firemen and teachers will be cut, which is about fear, when perhaps they should be since the Constitution doesn't say anything about federal involvement in safety or education internal to the nation

-while insisting on tax increases and that American citizens cut back, Obama refuses to live within the nation's means

-he chides the GOP for taking vacations, and then he jets off to Martha's Vineyard, plays golf, and enjoys the 4th of July while Harry Reid does squat in Washington for show

So what? Where are the good men who are supposed to step forth and save the Constitution, if we can keep it? I am not saying there are none in Washington. I do not think they are doing enough. What can we do?

1. stop supporting businesses that support the unwraveling of the Constitution. I know you might like cable TV, the NY Times, and AARP for its discounts, and the Prius, but those companies are involved in supporting his agenda to destroy the Constitution.

2. get involved. it's not enough to vote. Dead people and illegal aliens do that. Make calls, discuss politics with your friends, knock on doors, mail things, and contact your congressmen and senators incessantly until they tell you, as Harry Reid told me once, to stop calling them because you're clearly an idiot. If you have the balls, run for office yourself.

3. get your house in order. Madison told us that the Constitution was for a moral and religious people. Get clean of drugs and immorality. Get your house clean. Get food storage. Become independent. Buy a gun and some ammo, and then pray to God that you never have to use it.

4. get behind the candidate who best understands and supports the principles of the Revolution and Convention. I'm not talking about the person whom you like the most or who 'has the best chance to win' or who sounds good, looks good on TV, or with whom you agree most. Find the candidate who is most like the Founders and back him with everything you have. Maybe that's not you, and maybe your choices aren't between Jefferson, Washington, and Adams, but if they're a lot better than a Statist or an Obamist, then they're much better than we have today. Upgrade whenever you can. Hold your ground when you get there.

When the Constitution hangs by a thread, it is up to moral men who are good and brave and true to step forward and save it. Just last weekend we all went out, shot off fireworks, ate beef products, and spent time with families in commemoration of or at least because of the sacrifice of the Men of '76. Be a 76er. Go to the green.

Politicians Use Words to Cover Truth

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Christine Romer, former Obama Economic advisor and now UC Economics Professor told a panel at UMo, St Louis that we are in a growthless recovery. What in thunder is that?

In her comments, she also admitted that job numbers are not exciting. It takes 100,000 jobs every month just to keep pace with the growth in the workforce as our population expands. Add to that the illegal aliens and consider that for young people, due to such a high minimum wage, businesses opt for more skilled workers at that cost, and we're shooting ourselves in the foot.

We have had nothing get better since Obama got elected. He promised to remove troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 but that won't happen. He tells us he just needs a few more years. What happened to the touch of the Messiah?

Everything they do is hypocritical. Now they're telling us that coal saves the environment, as long as it's burned in China. Obama chides Congress for vacations, then flits off to Martha's Vineyard. He lectures us on fiscal responsibility while he spends more money than every other President ever combined, even if you count Calvin Coolidge twice. His green energy push is hedged by companies that are involved in the green industry going bankrupt. Once it was global warming, and now it's just 'climate change', which to everyone else is called 'weather'. The president says he's interested in our thoughts and then holds his town hall meetings on twitter where you have to limit your comments to under 140 characters. How substantive can you get in that space?

You do not get to define the words. A growthless entity is one that is damned, that is stagnant, that is not expanding. How is that recovery? If that's the case, every stinking plant in the desert is recovering all the time, because most of them hang on for dear life during the summer and don't grow at all. Growthless recovery...how jejune of a notion. If they could prove Obama's policies had worked, they would have. it would have been clear to convict him. Instead, it's a lot like the Casey Anthony trial, where the prosecution was clearly not able to piece things together to the satisfaction of armchair investigators worldwide.

Twitter Townhall

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The Twitter Townhall was a Treasure Trove of Quotes that should be able to bury Barack Obama as America's worst presidential demagogue.

Although I only caught the last two questions, here are some of my favorite quotes:

"we can cut defense 1% and pay for all of education"

"welfare payments are not the cause of our debt"

"we're there to support you as long as you're willing to show responsibility for being willing to work"

"those who say we can't make any changes to our social welfare programs or else you're being mean to old people"

"there are some programs that if they are not working we should be willing to eliminate them"

"what ties us together is this idea that everybody's got a shot as long as you carry out your responsibilities"

"you would not have Twitter if the DoD and some universities had not made investments in something called the internet" --I thought it was Al Gore

Senator Jeff Sessions was correct: We are not for taxing ourselves to bail out wreckless spending.

Why should Republicans have to come to the table with something when Democrats have never even passed a budget in 798 days?

"It's really irresponsible"

The media is a joke. They mentioned a few questions from major GOP officials and their suggestions for Obama's answer:

Will you admit stimulus is a mistake?

nope

What's your budget plan?

better than yours

Cheeky, but not useful or illuminating.

Keep talking, Mr. President. You make the case for your own replacement better than anyone else. Not to mention the stuttering... Stay tuned for more when I catch up on this tomorrow.

Freedom = Prosperity

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This last weekend, my fellows celebrated Independence Day. Well, most of them indulged their pyromania, gorged on beef and beer, and partied into the night. My beagle was not excited. What did I do? Well, I practiced John Hancock's signature, just in case I ever get the chance for that joke.

Although I argue with the premise of this video, the visual illustration is very stunning. In a visual representation of mathematical paradigms, Hans Rosling shows us what a difference the ideas and principles born, nurtured, and enabled by the Miracle of '76 made possible in the world today:

In general, as countries became industrial and free, they increase in both health and wealth, or at least one of the two. Freedom is inexoribly linked with prosperity no matter how most people define it. Despite bad wars, flu epidemics, the stock market crash, AIDS, cancer, etc., the quality of life has increased dramatically since 1810, which is very close to the time when America was born and when her Constitution was written, ratified, and first tested in war with Great Britain, which was one of the most prosperous nations at the time.

Colonized countries grow when they gain their freedom. At a very time when our leaders try to impress upon us dependency, history has shown that freedom allows men to best and most rapidly forge ahead in health, wealth and welfare. Differences notwithstanding, industrialization [think Capitalism] (which includes the infamous enemy of the Statist- Oil) lead to increased way of life. Africa may lag behind, but almost all African nations are better off today than any nation was in 1810. We often forget that, much as poverty may be an apparent problem among us today, many of those people would not have lasted very long if we lived in 1810. We truly have seen huge and historical progress.

We cannot make it to the healthy and wealthy corner by abandoning the principles that allowed some countries to break out in the first place. If we wish to be prosperous, healthy, and happy, experience and data have shown that free people are better off than any others at every other time. The longer you hold people pent up, the longer you hold them down from rising to their potential. That is the message of July 4th- that prosperity results when freedom expands.

Torrential Rain in the Desert

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Strange rainfall in the desert is something to which I am accustomed. When I visited Death Valley a few years back, the guide told me that he had not seen it rain at Scotty's Castle for years. Two Decembers ago, a freak snowstorm dropped 4" of snow on Henderson, almost causing me to get into an accident on the freeway. Last December, it rained so much in a 24 hour period that my house leaked. They're just not built for rain!

Sunday, a torrential rain fell on Las Vegas. It flooded streets, stopped fireworks displays, and knocked out power for 10,000 people, many of which lived within a few blocks (circa 1-1.5 mile) of where I live.

There is a great significance to this rainfall. The official record was 0.74" of rain, breaking the previous record of 0.42" set years back. This is also almost 25% of Las Vegas' average annual rainfall of 3.3". Up until today, our annual accumulated rainfall total in the valley was 0.1". Considering that it came in July is very unusual, because although thunderstorms are common this amount is not. I am unaware of any year on record in which Las Vegas received this much rain on any day in July let alone the month entire.

Rainy days are rare in Vegas. I pay attention to them. We have long wondered what strange weather we would have given the weather aberrations in other regions of the country. It was an interesting day, and then at the end there were even fireworks.

Happy Independence Day

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In a letter to his wife on 3 July 1776, John Adams wrote the following:

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

See, the vote to adopt Independence and the first two signatures had been affixed the day before, on 2 July 1776. There is a woman at Independence Hall who I hope remembers this, because I once received a call from the US Secretary of the Interior apologizing to me that she got that wrong on my first tour.

Today is our actual Independence Day. They kept it a secret because they were committing high treason against the British Crown and wanted to protect the ability of those who were there to flee if necessary should the British have caught wind. Given the import of this document in our lives, I reproduce it here. Thank God for the signers.

The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Be More

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The following will be produced, hopefully by summer's end, as a YouTube video with hopefully only minor edits. Watch for it on my channel. I will announce it on my blog when I finish. Running Slug Productions is proud to present...

Over twenty years ago, I was introduced to a psychological exercise on the powers of negative peer pressure. In a particular religion class, one teacher had the great convenience to have all of the power players in the high school, the people like whom all the other students aspired to be as his students. These included for example the varsity football captain, the head cheerleader, the student body president, and the eventual valedictorian. The teacher drew four symbols on the board: circle, star, oval, and square and gave the students specific instruction. He then invited another teacher to send over one of his freshman.

The freshman timidly knocked and entered the room. The teacher invited him to occupy a single vacant seat at the head of the class in the front row. The freshman could not believe himself when he discovered himself in a class with all the most prominent members of his high school. Even more amazing, they accepted him as one of their own, inviting him to sit with them, joking and laughing with him, and making him feel quite at home.

Then the teacher began the test. He turned to the varsity football captain and asked him to help with a visual experiment and to describe the four objects on the board. He began naming them, according to the instructions: "circle, star, oval, triangle". The freshman, who couldn't believe someone he so admired could have made such an obvious mistake, laughed aloud. Quickly, he noticed he was the only one laughing, and the students turned to him with that look of disdain that only seniors can muster towards freshman. He slunk a little in his chair.

The teacher continued. Each of the others in the front row continued to name the objects "circle, star, oval, triangle", and every time, the freshman sank lower in his chair. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He knew as he looked around that soon the time would be his to go through the exercise and he was nervous.

At length, it was his turn. Everyone's eyes were upon him. Tepidly, he began, each word phrased as if it were a question.

"Circle?" he began.
"Good..." said the teacher.
"Uh, star?"
Silence. You could have heard a pin drop.
"...er...oval..."

At this point, the freshman paused and looked around. He knew that it was a square. Would his admiration for all of these power players corrupt his judgment of what he knew? One of the others in the class prodded him, "What's the last one?" The time for decision had come.

We live in a world full of negative peer pressure. There are people all around you who will try to convince you that good is evil and evil good. They will try to get you to join in with them to justify their aberrant and abhorrent behaviors and beliefs. They are looking for people to bring down, and if they can get you to join in with them, they will use it to rationalize themselves. Remember that not everyone is doing it.

One of my great heroes is Sir Thomas More. During a time of great ideaological upheaval, he stuck to his beliefs even to the loss of his life. King Henry VIII sought unanimous approval for his divorce from Catherine of Aragon so that he could wed Anne Boleyn. In one of his letters to his daughter, Margaret Roper, he told her that sometimes we must stand fast a little at the risk of being heroes. During one of his interviews in the Tower of London leading up to his execution, we see this dramaticized exchange:

"Some men think the earth is round; others think it flat.  It is a matter capable of question, but if it is flat, will the king's command make it round and if it is round will the king's command flatten it?" What More means in this scene is that no man on earth can declare something to be good or brave or true unless it actually is so.

In his book, Human Action, Ludwig von Mises deals with values. He explains that it is not true that virtue does not pay. He explains that the people who choose to live virtuous lives value virtue more than any advantage the alternative affords.

Be More. There will be people who will tempt you to be less than that of which you are capable. There will be people who will attempt to get you to lower your standards for either a little temporary pleasure or security. However, one of the chief causes for failure and unhappiness in life is when we trade what we desire most for what pleases us at that moment. In our scene, the freshman faces accolades and acceptance by his peers or being true to what he has been taught.

You may be asked to come along, 'for fellowship'. The people who ask this of you do not do it for you.  Your 'friends' may make mention of how your spiritual, legal, financial and social status is on the line for your submission to group think.  Any person who offers you or invites you to participate in something that they know is contrary to your principles is no friend.  You can be better than that. You can be the miracle. You can be More.

The Role and the Goal

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I was introduced to a concept this week in a way that made it easier to understand. Although I have previously given thought to things in advance of their putative arrival, it was always about decisions. These were mostly things about what I would do if X or Y happened or if people invited me to option 1 or 2. What about things I might one day be?

Prepare for things that may be true in your life. As we consider our possible choices in life, we too infrequently think of our roles in life. What if we become parents? Teachers? President of the United States? What would we be? How prepared would we be? What would I do in this position to meet the goals I would be asked to achieve?

One of the things I resolved to do as a consequence of this conversation was learn to put a carseat in my car. At least then I wouldn't look like a complete nutcase on the way home from delivery with my first child! I remember months back, a friend of mine invited and impressed upon me that I hold her son. You could tell very well that I had never held a child before, because I had absolutely zero idea how to do it and looked as awkward as a hobbit in Mordor. We all know that children don't come with a handbook for much of the minutea of parenthood, and although we basically know how and what to teach them, we frequently do not know how to handle the roles that come upon us.

How we handle things is what makes us what we become. After work Monday night, I spoke with a young woman who was divorced last October. She still referred to herself as a 'divorcee' and I told her that we are not what happens to us. We are what we make happen. Now that she is in the role of a single woman again, what are her goals? What will she decide to be?

The example for us is that of Noah. When he was called to be a prophet, he was given two assignments; call the people to repentance and build a boat. Noah wasn't a lecturer, a professor, or a philosopher, and he certainly wasn't a shipwright. Yet, from stem to stern of his tenure in that office, he commended himself to the Lord and acted out his role. On a stone in a small Scottish town stand these words of inscription: "Whate'er thou art, act well thy part."

Today you may be understudy or stagehand. Remember that it is completely consistent with the Savior to call in strangers for the feast of the bridegroom (Matt 22:3-10). You may be in a minor role or not even on the program, but he has frequently drawn upon people who were available to fill important roles, especially where substitutions were necessary in case of wickedness or rebellion against his will. Neal A Maxwell in his book "Deposition of a Disciple" tells us that "God gives the picks and shovels to the 'chosen' because they are willing to go to work and get callouses on their hands. They may not be the most capable, but they are the most available." As understudies in the work of God, consider what you will do if you are asked to step into a different role, especially a leading one. As you keep in mind the goal and the role, you will find that you perform much more admirably than you or any other mortal expects, and it will be well with God and you.

Laws Don't Affect the Lawless

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Lots of people say "there ought to be a law..." about something with which they happen to disagree. When we do that, we frequently forget that there are lots of things we do that are disagreeable to others. More laws are not the answer. What we actually need are more people who respect the laws we already have, because otherwise the same thing could be said of us that Disney's Archimedes says of Madame Mimm (0:42-0:45). "Did I say no purple dragons?":

The Democrats make the rules. They owned every branch of government for two years, and they hold much of the bureaucracy. Yet, they are frequently like Madame Mimm, so much so that this Toothpastefordinner cartoon could be a tshirt issued to almost every member of the Democrat party.

Conservatives are the ones who play fair. They're the ones who control their emotions and reactions. In another time, Michelle Bachmann might have sought satisfaction from Chris Wallace in the customary fashion, the same fashion that made Aaron Burr a fugitive. Obama demands that his opponents treat him with civility while he treats them like garbage. Now they're threatening to investigate Bachmann's 23 foster children, as if they are any more a reflection of her than her own, since anyone who knows how foster care works knows that foster children move in and out of homes with varied degrees of success.

Most Democrats don't seem very interested in obeying the law. That's not a qualification. When I was interviewed for a job with the NHP, they were not impressed with the fact that I obey the law. It mattered more if I had a criminal justice degree or at least did some ridealongs. I think it ought to be a better qualification that those who enforce the law be people who strictly adhere to it.

Much has been said of late of the gaffs. Michelle Bachman messes up John Wayne the actor and John Wayne Gacy the clown killer, and like that incident, thanks to the media, we will always remember when Quayle added an “e” to potato and how Bush mispronounced nuclear, but when Obama talks of 57 states, the nuclear bomb dropped on Pearl Harbor, the medal of honor awarded to a dead person, etc., they let his ‘little’ gaffs go. Media types are equally imperfect. If we’re going to let it go, let it go, and let’s have a consistent policy. Many evil men want us to integrate them continually based on what is now regardless of what has ever been, but if you ever do anything, they hang that millstone about your neck and sew a scarlet letter to your vest and bang their drums in the streets, branding you forever in both directions of time for a momentary hiccup.

We do not need more taxes. We need those who get tax money to be better stewards of the common treasure. We do not need more laws. We need better enforcement of the laws we already have. We do not need more citizens. We need more of our citizens to obey, honor and sustain the laws. We do not need more regulation. We need to regulate our government. If you would be free, govern yourselves and elect those who do likewise.

Interesting Search Exercise

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While looking for a particular story, I was interrupted in my search. I had only managed to type "Obama opposes" into Yahoo when I was called away from the desk. Upon my return, Yahoo had come up with some suggestions for what I might be seeking, and it came up with an interesting list. So, I also typed in "Palin opposes" and "Palin supports" and "Obama supports" just to see what the search engine suggestions drag up for me. It was an interesting exercise, and I encourage you to think of similar boolian strings to use just for grins and giggles.


Here were today's results:


Obama supports

Obama opposes:

Palin supports:

Palin opposes:

As you look at the candidates, these are interesting tag lines. Remember that they are taken out of context but that they are quite illustrative of general mentality and bias.